Betty McCann: Summer brings memories of an old childhood game

Six- year-old Ryan Long of West Springfield plays hide and seek in the play area at Mittineague Park in West Springfield in the 2011 file photo.Republican file photo by JOHN SUCHOCKI

Summer is here, and as dusk approaches, the lightning bugs flit here and there. It is a time when in the recess of my memory I recall the voices and see the shadows of children laughing and chattering as they play the age old game of hide-and-seek.

Whose voices do I hear? Could they be my own childhood friends and cousins of years gone by, or are they the memories of my children, now grown, or my grandchildren, now teenagers?

I think of those days long gone, the excitement of hiding, running to get home safe and the game ending with the phrase so often misquoted as “Ollie, ollie, come homp free,” or sometimes as “Alley, alley come op fee.” Other people have other versions.

Where did we learn the rules of this game? I don’t remember anyone telling me how to play nor what to say. Were we all born knowing how to hide and how to seek, looking behind trees, bushes, rocks and crevices?

Do today’s children still play the game? I would be disappointed to think they do not. From generation to generation on warm summer evenings I hope the game continues with all future children.

There are no written rules, no game boards, no dice to throw, and no electronics involved unless one decides to use a flashlight and play after dark.

The person who is IT is the one who does the hunting. To select the IT, my friends and I did the “eeny, meeny, miney mo” rhyme.

When I asked my grown son how he chose the seeker when he was young, he gave me this jingle:

My mother and your mother were hanging up their clothes

My mother punched your mother right in the nose

What color was her blood

R-e-d spells red, and you will not be it.

I do believe my verse for choosing the IT person is much nicer than his. Where do these rhymes originate?

To start the game I remember putting my head against a tree, closing my eyes, counting to a hundred by fives; then with eyes open and with my index finger drawing a circle I would say, “ I draw a magic circle and sign it with a dot.” I know not where this ritual originated, but it was all part of the game I played.

Hide an seek has no competition and no losers, just lots of exciting fun. I do recall, however, one episode that made me feel a bit sad when I heard it. My youngest grand daughter, along with her sister and the neighbor’s children were playing, and the older children decided they’d go off and leave the younger one hiding.

Poor little tyke stayed hidden for a very long time until her mother learned what the others had done and rescued her from her hiding place. I’m sure this has happened to others, but it’s not part of the game!

Now as I gaze out my window and view the encroaching evening I can once again visualize in the depths of my memory youngsters darting behind trees, crouching in corners, covering their mouths to stifle giggles.

Oh, how I wish I could call out to those children who scamper about in shadowland, “Ollie, Ollie, Ollie, come homp free.” The correct pronunciation of these words has been lost and evolved by children over the years from the original phrase, but it still means “All ye, all ye out can come home free.”